The Space Between

Fire …

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.

Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build open spaces in the same way
we have learned to pile on logs,
then we come to see how it is fuel,
and the absence of fuel together,
that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log lightly from time to time.

A fire grows simply because the space is there,
with openings in which the flame that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

— Judy Brown from Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach


Image by F.A. Mac Donald, Inverness, Nova Scotia, Canada (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons